Day of Confession Part 44

Elena stopped at the bottom of the stairs and opened her own camera case. Coughing, wiping her tearing eyes, she took out two dampened handkerchiefs and spread them open. Pulling one over Danny's nose and mouth, she tied it behind his head like a bandana. Then she did the same for herself and pushed them forward and into the Chiaramonti Gallery of Sculptures. The portrait busts of Cicero, Heracles with his son, the statue of Tiberius, the colossal head of Augustus, all were lost in the fog of smoke and ma.s.s confusion as people rushed both ways down the long, narrow gallery at the same time. All looking for a way out.

"Harry-" Danny hunched over into the phone.

"First one's okay-The second's-"

"Shut it down now!"

"As soon as I can, Danny-"

Harry grimaced, the second of the two wheels was rusted, and it took everything he had. Finally it gave all too fast, and he pitched sideways against the Christmas tree, ripping the skin from his knuckles and tossing the phone a dozen feet away.

"s.h.i.t."

THEIR BANDANAS MAKING them look like Old West bandits, Elena turned Danny sideways and pulled him back, avoiding a half dozen j.a.panese tourists running hand in hand toward them like a train, yelling, choking, crying with the smoke like everyone else. As she did, she glanced out one of the narrow windows and saw a phalanx of blue-shirted men in berets and armed with rifles run into the courtyard outside.

"Father," she said, alarmed.

Danny looked. "Swiss Guard," he said, then turned back to the phone, as Elena moved them forward again.

"Harry-"

"HARRY-"

"What?-"

Harry was bent over, recovering the tossed phone and at the same time sucking on his b.l.o.o.d.y knuckle.

"What's wrong?"

"The f.u.c.king water's off, okay?"

Danny put up a hand as they reached the far end of the gallery. Elena stopped the wheelchair. In front of them was a closed gate to the gallery beyond. The Galleria Lapidaria, the Gallery of Inscriptions. As far as they could tell, no one was inside.

For the first time they were alone, the crowd, the rush, the panic moving in the opposite direction.

"I'm going for fire three. Are you out of there?" Harry's voice came through the phone.

"Two more stops."

"Hurry the h.e.l.l up."

"The Swiss Guards are outside in force."

"Forget the last two stops."

"We do, you'll have Farel and the Swiss Guards all over you."

"Then stop talking and do it."

"Harry." Danny looked back. Through the window he could see the Swiss Guards pulling on gas masks, and firemen with breathing tanks and fire axes.

"Eaton is somewhere here. Adrianna Hall is with him."

"How the h.e.l.l did-?"

"I don't know."

"Jesus Christ, Danny, forget Eaton. Just get the h.e.l.l out of there!"

150.

"IT'S A DIVERSION." THOMAS KIND STOOD ON the roadway just below the tower, watching the smoke from the Vatican museums billow up, talking into the two-way radio in his hand. In the distance he could hear the scream of emergency vehicles en route from various Rome City locations.

"What will you do?" Farel's voice came back at him.

"My plans have not changed. Nor should yours either." Suddenly Thomas Kind clicked off, and turned back for the tower.

HERCULES CROUCHED in his perch, tying the last of the heavy knots in the snout of his climbing rope, and watched Thomas Kind come back up the pathway toward the tower, radio in hand, talking into it as he came. Below, he saw the black suits on the far side of the hedge.

Hercules waited for Thomas Kind to pa.s.s the tower. Then, crutches tied together by a short length of rope and tossed over his shoulder, he moved up on the wall, hesitated briefly, and whirled a length of rope with its heavily knotted snout over head. Standing up fully, balancing almost on air, he flung the rope up and over the roof.

The knotted end settled around a heavy iron railing, then fell back. As the rope went slack Hercules glanced around once more. In the distance he could see the smoke from Vatican buildings, and over the hill beyond the trees in front of him, still more smoke rising.

Standing, he whirled the rope once more and let it fly. Again it came back slack and he cursed himself. And threw it again.

On the fifth toss it snagged, and he tested his weight on it. The tension held and he went up, grinning, straight up the side of the tower, crutches dangling from his back. Moments later he disappeared from sight over its red-and-white-tile roof.

151.

"DAMMIT!" EATON CHOKED AGAINST THE smoke, handkerchief to his mouth, watery eyes searching the courtyard from the upper window of the Gallery of Tapestries, watching for wheelchairs in the ma.s.s exodus. He had already seen two of the handicapped people and discounted them. Where the h.e.l.l Father Daniel and the nurse were in this confusion was impossible to tell.

Smoke, coughing, tearing eyes, and the panic around them aside, none of it was keeping Adrianna from rattling into her cell phone. She had two camera crews outside, one in St. Peter's square, the other at the entrance to the Vatican museums. Two more were on the way, and a Skycam helicopter pulled from the Adriatic coast, where it had been covering an Italian Navy exercise, was due any minute.

Suddenly Eaton was pulling her around, taking the phone from her, covering it with his hand.

"Tell them to watch for a bearded man in a wheelchair being cared for by a young woman," he said urgently. "Tell them he's suspected of starting the fire or whatever. Tell them if they spot him to keep him in sight and let you know right then. Thomas Kind gets to him first, it's over."

Adrianna nodded and Eaton gave her back the phone.

GRIMACING AT THE PAIN in his legs, Danny struggled up in his wheelchair and pressed his full weight against the window frame. For a moment nothing happened. Finally, there was a loud creak. The old casing gave and the window swung open just enough to see out and onto the Belvedere Courtyard. The fire department was directly across, and the throw at this angle, awkward. Still- Opening the camera bag, he took out one of the oil-and-rum-filled beer bottles, with the short wick sticking from the neck. Now he looked up to Elena, her face barely visible behind the bandana covering it.

"You all right?"

"Yes."

Danny glanced back, then raised the bottle and touched a match to the wick.

Leaning back, he counted to five.

"Oorah!" he grunted and flung the bottle through the open window. Outside, a resounding crash was followed by a wall of flame as the shattering gla.s.s spread burning oil across the pavement and into the shrubbery beneath the window.

"Other side," he said quickly, pulling the window closed, sitting back down.

Two minutes later a second bottle exploded on the gravel near the Courtyard of the Triangle-the closest point yet toward the papal palace-like the first firebomb, sending a sheet of flame across the open ground and igniting the brush around it.

152.

FAREL'S OFFICE WAS PANDEMONIUM. THE fire chief was on the telephone, demanding to know what the h.e.l.l was going on, screaming that water pressure had been reduced to a dribble everywhere when the first bomb exploded outside the fire department. Instantly the chief's tone changed. Were they under a terrorist siege or not? He was not sending his fire fighters against armed terrorists. That was Farel's job.

Farel well knew and was already scrambling his black suits toward the museums to a.s.sist the fully armed regiment of Swiss Guards, leaving only the six, including Thomas Kind and Anton Pilger, to keep the trap at the tower. It was then that the second firebomb went off.

No more chances could be taken. This might be the Addisons, it might not.

"The water is your problem, Capo." Farel ran a sweaty hand across his shaved head.

"The Vigilanza and Swiss Guards will get the public to safety. My concern is one thing alone. The safety of the Holy Father. Nothing else matters." With that he hung up and started for the door.

HERCULES COULD SEE Harry's fourth fire go up. Then he saw him cross out of the smoke and start toward the tower, then duck behind a row of ancient olive trees and disappear.

Securing the rope in a double twist around the iron railing at the top of the tower, then letting it slip through his fingers, Hercules eased himself down the steep pitch of roof to the edge and looked over. Some twenty feet beneath him he could see the small platform that stuck out from Marsciano's prison room. And twenty, thirty feet below that was the ground. Easy enough, unless people were shooting at you.

Across the way he saw another fire go up. And then another, the thick smoke filtering the sunlight and turning the landscape blood red. Suddenly the bright morning had become dark. The combination of Harry's fires, the smoke from the museums, and the absolute lack of wind had, in the matter of the last few minutes, come together and turned Vatican Hill into an eerie, nearly invisible, foglike dreamscape, a choking, ghostly canvas where objects floated free-form and disembodied, where seeing more than a few feet in any direction was all but impossible.

Beneath him Hercules could hear coughing and gagging. Then, for a briefest moment the smoke cleared and he saw the two black suits nearest the front door move quickly away toward where the others were hidden, desperate to find fresh air.

At the same time he saw a figure dart across the road in the direction of the railroad station and into the tall hedges on the far side. Slinging off his crutches, Hercules moved up on his knees, waving them over his head. A moment later Harry's head popped up. Hercules used the crutches to point across the roadway, where the four black suits were gathered. Harry waved back, then the smoke came again, and he vanished from sight. Fifteen seconds later, bright red flame shot up from the spot where he had been.

10:38 A.M A.M.

Roscani, Scala, and Castelletti stood beside the blue Alfa, watching the smoke and listening to the sirens, like most all of Rome. The police radio gave them more, the ongoing exchanges between Vatican Police and Fire and Rome City Police and Fire. They had heard Farel himself call for a helicopter for the pope, not to land on the helipad at the rear of the Vatican gardens but on the ancient roof of the papal apartments.

At almost the same moment, they saw a puff of diesel smoke from the work engine. Then a second puff came, and the little green engine began to inch forward toward the Vatican gates. That the pope was being evacuated, as was most of the Vatican proper, had no bearing on orders. The railroad wasn't on fire, and no one had called them back. So, forward they went, wanting only to retrieve an aging freight car.

"Who has a cigarette?" Abruptly Roscani turned from the train to look at his policemen.

"No, Otello," Scala said. "You quit, you can't start again..."

"I didn't say I was going to light it." Roscani snapped harshly.

Scala hesitated. He could see Roscani's disquiet. "You're worried about the whole thing, especially what happens to the Americans."

Roscani looked at Scala a moment longer. "Yes," he said, half nodding, then turned and walked away by himself. Back down the track, stopping finally to watch the work engine as it crept toward the Vatican wall.

153.

10:40 A.M A.M.

A DARK MERCEDES LIMOUSINE WAS PARKED in the shadow of a hedgerow near the tower, the car to take the bodies of the Addison brothers out of the Vatican.

Thomas Kind sat inside, behind the wheel and out of the smoke. He had known from the first fire the brothers were coming. At first he thought it was a simple diversion, and then had come more fires and then the blanket of smoke and he knew he was dealing with someone with definitive military training. He knew Father Daniel had been a skilled marksman and a member of an elite unit in the U.S. Marine Corps; but the smoke and effectiveness of it were telling him the priest had been with a group such as Force Recon, which was schooled in deep insurgency. If so, he would have trained with the Navy SEALS, who are schooled to do with a small number of men what a major force might do, and who rely almost entirely on the individual.

What it meant was the Addisons were much more inventive and dangerous than he thought. It was a musing abruptly brought to life when suddenly Harry Addison darted past an opening in the hedge directly in front of him and vanished back into the smoke moving toward the tower.

Thomas Kind's immediate response was to go after Harry right then and kill him himself. And he was starting to, his hand already on the car door, when he pulled himself back. His reaction had been uncontrolled and flush with urgency. It was the old feeling, and it terrified him. This was what he had thought about earlier when he had admitted to himself that he was ill and decided to distance himself from the act.

There were other men here who were paid and waiting to do the job. He needed to let them and refuse to become involved himself. If he did, he would be all right.

Abruptly he lifted his two-way radio. "This is S S," he said into it, S S now his official command designation. "Target B is dressed in civilian clothes and moving alone on the tower. Let him get inside and then eliminate him immediately." now his official command designation. "Target B is dressed in civilian clothes and moving alone on the tower. Let him get inside and then eliminate him immediately."

HIDDEN IN THE VEGETATION at the bottom of the tower, Harry looked up through the smoke. He could just see Hercules. Again the dwarf pointed toward the far bushes where the black suits had gone. Acknowledging, Calico in hand, he moved. In an instant he was at the heavy gla.s.s tower door, throwing it open and going inside. Closing it behind him, he locked it and turned quickly to look at what was there. A small foyer, with narrow stairs leading up, a tiny elevator.

Glancing over his shoulder at the door, he pressed the elevator b.u.t.ton and waited for the door to slide open. When it did, he reached inside and clicked the lock switch into place. Then, using the Calico as a hammer, he brought the grip down hard on the top of the switch, breaking it off and disabling the elevator.

Quickly, he turned back, glanced again at the door, and then started up the stairs.

He was halfway up when he heard them trying to get past his lock and in through the door. It would be only a matter of seconds before they would break the gla.s.s and come in after him.

He looked up. Another dozen steps and stairs turned abruptly to the right. Quickly he climbed them, stopping at the corner and easing around, Calico first, ready to fire. There was nothing. The stairs simply continued up to the next floor, maybe twenty steps higher.

Suddenly he heard the crash of gla.s.s below. Then the door slammed open, and he glimpsed two men in black suits come in and start up the stairs, guns drawn. Quickly he darted around the corner and stopped. Slipping the Calico into his belt, he opened the waist pack and took out the olive-oil-and rum-filled Moretti beer bottle. He could hear the footsteps as the men raced up the stairs behind him.

Lighting a match, he touched it to the wick in the bottle, counted-one, two. Suddenly he stepped out, flinging the bottle at the feet of the first man. The crash of gla.s.s and whoosh of flame were buried in a hail of gunshots. Bullets chewed up the stairs beside Harry, w.a.n.ged off the ceiling and walls. Then the shooting stopped. In its place came the sound of the men below screaming.

"This time you're out of luck," a heavily accented voice barked from above.

Harry whirled, pulling the Calico free. A familiar figure was coming down the stairs toward him. Young, black suited, eager, deadly. Anton Pilger. A large gun was in his hand, and his finger closing on the trigger.

Harry was already firing, pulling the Calico's trigger. He kept on pulling it, making Pilger's body seem to dance on the stairs where it was, his own gun firing into the steps at his feet, his expression one of surprise and puzzlement.

Finally, his legs gave out and he slid backward against the stairs. There was a crackle from the radio in his jacket. But that was all. In the deathly silence that came next Harry knew that he had heard the voice before. Suddenly he understood what Pilger had said about luck. He had tried to kill Harry before and failed. It had been in the sewer, after he had been tortured and before Hercules found him.

Then Harry bent over, taking Pilger's radio and moving on up the stairs in a daze, only now realizing the truth of why he was there, why he had done all of this. It was because he loved his brother and because his brother needed him. There was no other reason.

10:45 A.M A.M.

154.

MARSCIANO WAS PRESSED BACK AGAINST THE wall when he heard the lock turn in the door. He'd heard the gunshots outside in the hallway. The breaking gla.s.s and the screaming. His prayers were twofold. That Father Daniel was coming for him. And that he wasn't.